


The Boy From The Train

by Pastaaddict



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Antonio is not quite a pervert but gets up to shenanigans, F/M, Francis is a pervert (of course), Madeline can see ghosts, Not everything is quite what it seems, Secret Crush, She has a shock, originally Posted on FanFiction.Net under the same name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 12:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19426132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pastaaddict/pseuds/Pastaaddict
Summary: Madeline Kirkland-Jones has always been able to see dead people. She also see the cute albino boy on the train to school every morning until one day, he stops taking the train. Over a month later, her uncle asks her to exorcise ghosts from the school he's headmaster of. When she sees the ghosts, she gets a shock!





	The Boy From The Train

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CANADA! This is for you!  
> This is based on a story from a story at the end of volume 6 of Absolute Boyfriend, a small story called I Won't Let You Be A Star by Yuu Watase. Credit goes to this author and credit for Hetalia goes to Hidekaz Himaruya. I own nothing!
> 
> Enjoy!

****The Boy From The Train** **

  


Madeline Kirkland-Jones saw him on the train to and from school every day, the boy with the white hair and the red eyes in a school uniform, same as her brother's but he always seemed to be at the other end of the carriage, away from her, never noticing the blonde girl with twin ponytails with the stray strand of curly hair and violet eyes. He would get off at the same station as her and meet up with a blonde boy and a brunette and disappear.

She remembered, one time, when the train was full and an old woman climbed on board, the albino boy gave up his seat and Maddie heard him say that it would be unawesome of him to leave a lady standing. Maddie thought she had fallen in love in that moment and she wondered where he went to after school and she decided she would follow him and find out. It might seemed like stalking and make her late getting home but Maddie was just too curious.

The train stopped and the albino boy got off and, like always, met his two friends and they went on their way, not realising they had a tag-along. Maddie struggled to keep the trio in sight among the other people on the street and she had just spotted them again when a man appeared in front of her, covered in blood with sunken eyes.

Maddie screamed.

Maple! She hated her sixth sense but better her than her twin brother. She could imagine Alfred running, screaming down the street if a ghost appeared in front of him. It was the jump scares she hated as a ghost could just show up without warning and, even now, people were staring at the girl who screamed at nothing. Well, nothing they could see.

"Did you have to scare me like that?" she gasped at the apparition. The man looked confused.

"Can you see me?" he asked. "No one else seems to be able to." Madeline realised that the man did not know he had passed on.

"That's because you're dead," she told the man. "You should rest in peace now." The man's face took on a look of understanding.

"So I didn't survive the accident," he replied and smiled at Maddie. "Thank you!" Then he vanished. Maddie sighed, ignoring all the looks she was getting for seemingly talking to herself and looked around. Her cute albino boy and his friends were nowhere in sight and all she could see were strangers with a few ghosts among them, wandering around among the living. Great! Distracted by the spirit, she had lost them. She could ask Alfred as the boy went to his school but he would ask why she wanted to know and she did not want to have that conversation. She could say she just saw him on the train and was curious but, for someone so oblivious, he was surprisingly clued on about her and boys and so she just hoped that she saw the boy on the train tomorrow.

* * *

She did not see him on the train the next day, or the day after that. Nor did she see his friends waiting for him. Had he moved somewhere else and no longer took this train? Maddie was sad to think she would not see him again and, as one month moved into another without further sign of him, she resigned herself to the fact and moved on.

* * *

__Summer Break ….._ _

"You want me to go and exorcise ghosts at Uncle Allistor's school!" Maddie said to her blonde-haired father, Arthur, his green eyes, capped with big eyebrows gazing back at her while she could hear her mother, Amelia moving around in the kitchen, getting herself some ice-cream. The whole family knew about Maddie's ability to see the spirits of the dead, although it freaked Alfred out when they showed up. He could not see them but he knew they were there when Maddie spoke and ran for cover. "But it's an all-boys school!"

Uncle Allistor was the headmaster of Alfred's school and all Alfred had talked about was the accident in the gym where some students had died and how it had been haunted ever since. Maddie had just thought it was her brother's over-active imagination but if her uncle was asking for help, there must be something in it.

"You gotta help, Sis," Alfred's blue eyes appealed to her behind his half rimmed glasses. He had blonde hair like her and their Dad (although Madeline had her Uncle Matthew's eyes), with a funny lock that stuck up at the front. "No one will go into the gym since it happened. There are rumours of ghosts floating in mid-air and appearing through the floor. It's scary and stuff!"

"Your Uncle Allistor wants the ghosts dealt with before the students return to school," Arthur said, his British heritage clear in his accent.

"Is that why he was especially generous with my birthday present this year?" Maddie huffed.

"You know your Uncle." Maddie sighed.

"Who was involved in this accident?"

* * *

The last thing Maddie expected to do during her Summer Break was sneak into a boys school to make some ghosts rest in peace. Gilbert Beilschmidt, Francis Bonnefoy and Antonio Carriedo, known as the Bad Touch Trio were charged with decorating the gym for the Festival the school threw before school broke up when there was an accident. Now, strange things were happening in the gym and no one wanted to go in there so Maddie had to find away to make the spirits move on to their eternal rest.

Sometimes, all it took was telling them they were dead and, sometimes, they already knew but there was something they wanted to do before they left this earthly plane so this could take no time or quite a while and Maddie was hoping it was the former as there was something creepy about a school campus, devoid of students and teachers and she made her way to the gym building.

The building was one of the oldest on the campus and it look dark and gloomy as she used the key that her Uncle had given her and the inside was as creepy as the outside as she pushed her way in. It was dark, the only light coming from small windows around the top of the walls. Shadows clung to every corner and most of the gym had been painted black but there seemed to be nothing supernatural until Maddie looked up toward the ceiling. There, hanging in mid-air was the figure of a boy in a school uniform. His head was down so she could not see his hair from her spot on the floor as she walked to stand almost underneath him. Then as if, he sensed he was not alone, he turned and looked down at her.

Familiar red eyes in a pale face, capped with white hair met her gaze. _It was the boy from the train!_ Maddie wanted to weep. So that's why he stopped travelling on the train.

He had died!

Maddie fell on to her hands and knees, wanting to wail at the unfairness of life as she had come to send this boy on, only to find that it was the boy she had been crushing on. The albino spirit frowned.

"Are you all right?" he asked with a German accent. "Wait! Can you …..." Maddie shrieked as the boy with dark hair and forest green eyes who always met the white-haired boy at the station, popped up through the floor by her head.

"She can see us, amigo!" the brunette said, sounding Spanish.

"Mon Dieu, a girl!" said a French voice behind her and she looked behind her to find the blonde boy leaning over her. "What are you doing here, chérie?"

Maddie shrieked again at the boy leaning over her in such an intimate manner and tried to kick the blonde boy away from her, only to have her foot go right through him.

"Don't do that!" she cried. "Don't just pop up like that, especially behind me!" She scrambled to her feet as the Spaniard came all the way through the floor. The French boy stood up and the German albino boy came down to the ground to meet them.

"I'm the Awesome Gilbert Beilschmidt," he said. "And these are my awesome, but not as awesome as me, friends, Francis Bonnefoy and Antonio Carriedo. Who are you and why are you here?"

"My name is Madeline Kirkland-Jones," Maddie replied. "I've come to send you on your way!" The three boys looked at each other and then back at Maddie.

"Send us on our way?" Antonio asked.

"I hate to tell you this," Maddie replied. "But you're dead!"

"Oh, Petit," Francis said. "We know that! Gilbert fell first, on top of Antonio and then I fell. It was quite a crash-down!" Maddie wanted to cry. She finally finds her cute albino again and he is dead and she has to exorcise him.

"This calls for an awesome BTT meeting," the object of her affection stated. "Subject of meeting, 'Resting in Peace!'." Antonio raised his hand.

"I think why we haven't rested in peace," he said. "Is we haven't fulfilled our last wishes yet!" That made sense to Maddie. If they get their last wishes, they would go to where they were supposed to but when she looked at Gilbert, she wanted to cry again. Why did he have to be dead?

"So what are your last wishes?" she asked and Francis gave a leering wink.

"Girls, of course," he replied. "What else?" Madeline was not sure she liked the sound of this.

"It's not how the unawesome pervert is making it sound," Gilbert said. "We were getting the gym ready for the end of year festival and we were inviting girls from other schools, hoping to find girlfriends. Or boyfriends, you can never tell with Francis."

"I just want to spread the love, mon ami," Francis replied. "To everyone."

"Instead, we died," Antonio said. "We never got to find girlfriends and Francis never got to spread the love."

"Not a bad thing," Maddie commented. "He sounds like a pervert."

"A lot of boys in an all boys school are like that," Gil admitted.

"My brother goes to this school," Maddie pointed out.

"I said a lot, not all," Gil replied. "Like me, I'm too awesome to be like that!" Maddie huffed.

"What exactly are your wishes, eh?" she asked.

"I just want to go on a date with a girl," Antonio said, turning to Maddie. "So will you go on a date with me?" Maddie would rather go on a date with Gilbert but she was here to help them all move on so if it would help ……

* * *

"This is the first time I've ever strolled down a street," Antonio said as they walked the main street. "With a girl, that is. Can I hold your hand, cariño?" Maddie stared at the Spaniard for a moment and then just nodded her head. What would it hurt? Antonio reached for her hand to take it in his but his hand just slipped straight through hers. Maddie and Antonio just looked at each other.

"Let's go to the cinema," she said to cover the awkwardness of the moment and they walked down the road to the local picture house. One advantage of Antonio being a ghost was Maddie only had to buy one ticket and, in the spirit of this being a date, she chose a romantic film and they took their seats next to another couple who were clearly on a date of their own. The boy had dark reddish brown hair with a curl on the right side of his head and caramel eyes and the girl had blonde hair, held back with a band and green eyes and she sat with her head resting on the boy's shoulder as they watched the film.

While Antonio watched the couple next to them, Maddie pondered the weirdness of the situation she was in. On a date with a ghost in the hope that it would finally send him to eternal rest and she wished it was Gilbert with her instead.

The boy had cuddled closer to the girl and put his arm around her and hugged her tight and Antonio looked back at Maddie, edged closer and put his arm around her shoulders to pull her closer to him.

His arm slipped straight through her and there was that awkward silence again.

"Dios mío!" he wailed. "If I can't hold you, how can I kiss you?"

"Who said I would let you!" Maddie exclaimed and blushed and hunkered down in her seat at all the angry glares being sent her way for the loud(ish) interruption of the film.

"You could possess someone," Gilbert popped up in the seat next to them, Maddie managing to not scream, and Antonio brightened up.

"Of course!" he said. "Why didn't I think of that? One moment, Maddie." And he turned to the boy in the next seat.

"Why are you giving him ideas?" she hissed at Gilbert so no one could hear her. Gilbert just shrugged. Antonio slipped into the boy's body, revelling in the ability to feel again and then he felt the girl cuddled up against his borrowed vessel. He just wanted to kiss a girl and one girl was as good as another and he decided she would do. Besides, if he kissed Maddie, the girl might decide her boyfriend was cheating on her and leave so Antonio placed his borrowed lips on the girl's.

"WHAT THE MAPLE!" Maddie exclaimed in shock which got a negative response from the other patrons of the cinema.

"SHUT UP!"

* * *

"I just don't believe you!" Maddie fumed as they walked away from the cinema. "That poor girl doesn't even know who really kissed her and that poor boy is going to be confused when she talks about it. Why bother with me if you're going to kiss random strangers?"

"Sorry, Maddie," Antonio blushed. "But she was there and, if I kissed you, she might have dumped the guy. You didn't want me to ruin a relationship before I went, do you?" Maddie had to admit he had a point and, the truth was, she only wanted one boy to kiss her and she turned to Gilbert.

"Why did you follow us, Gilbert?" she asked. Gil shrugged.

"I wanted to make sure Toni behaved himself with you," he replied. "And not go unawesomely too far."

"I'm not an animal, Gil!" Antonio retorted. "If you should worry about anyone over that, worry about Francis. In fact, you should stop worry about both of us, let us go and wake up!" Madeline's head whipped round.

"What?" Both boys looked back at Maddie and Antonio looked back at Gilbert who gave him a hard stare.

"Doesn't matter," he muttered and turned back to Maddie.

"Thanks, Maddie," he said. "I finally went on a date with a girl so I can rest now." Antonio smiled at Maddie and then looked at Gilbert. "Goodbye!" Antonio vanished.

Maddie blew out of breath. One spirit at peace, now time for the next and she turned to Gil with a heavy heart.

"And what's your final wish, Gilbert?" she asked. Gil gave a sad smile.

"It just partly came true," he replied. "I want Antonio and Francis to rest in peace." He started walking and Maddie followed him.

"They unawesomely died because of me," he admitted. "We were decorating the gym for the festival and Francis warned me I was too high up the ladder but I continued because I was almost finished but then the ladder wobbled and I unawesomely lost my balance and Francis fell when he tried to reach out for me. I fell on top of Antonio and Francis hit the floor. I should have listened to Francis so it was all my fault they died. Now I just want my friends to rest in peace and then go with them." Maddie's eyes filled with tears at Gil's story, of the blame he laid on his own shoulders for the death of his friends and she would do what she could to help them.

"I'll do my best," she promised.

* * *

"It's my turn, oui?" Francis asked when they got back to the gym.

"Do you want a date too?" Maddie asked. She was rather worried about being on a date with Francis. He did not seem to know where to stop.

"Well, actually," Francis smirked. "I've always wanted to touch a girl's body. I never got the chance in life." Maddie almost freaked out at that. Touch a girl's body! Just how was he going to do that?

Francis moved forward and his spirit merged with Maddie's form and she could feel him, moving her hands around, getting used to moving a body around again.

"So this is a girl's body," he said with her voice and that was when Maddie felt her own hands go to her boobs, giving them a squeeze. Inside her own mind, Maddie gave a squeak, even though she knew it was her own hands but she was not controlling them and the sensation of groping herself was not pleasant.

"They're so soft and squishy," she heard her own voice say. This might help Francis rest in peace but she did not want it happening in front of Gilbert. Then she felt her hand go down to her skirt and start to lift it.

"And I wonder what's under here," her voice took on a creepy, perverse tone and she freaked inside her head. No, this was too far!

Gilbert's fist flew at the back of her head, passed through it and knocked Francis out of Maddie's body. Francis staggered a few steps away from them, rubbing his head.

"Quit being an unawesome pervert!" Gilbert ordered. "Maddie's not here for your deviant pleasure. Now, apologise!"

"Désolé, petit," Francis replied. "I didn't mean to cross the line. But, if you give me a kiss, I promise I will finally rest in peace." Maple, this guy really does not know when to stop but it was not like he could really touch her outside her body. Francis came in close and his lips grew closer to hers and ….

….. Maddie put her head down and Francis's lips passed through the top of her head. She could not do it even if Francis's lips could never really connect because there was only one boy she wanted to give her kiss to.

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "I ONLY WANT TO KISS GILBERT!" Both Gil and Francis gave a start of surprise and Maddie blushed. She had not meant to say that out loud, in fact she had not meant to say that at all but keep it locked inside her own head. Oh maple! What would they say to that?

"Ah, I understand," Francis said with a smile. "I shall just go and rest in peace now." He turned to Gilbert.

"Think again, mon ami," he said to Gil. "I think there is someone here who wants you to stay. A girl who loves you. If you want to do something for us, stay and live your life. It's the best tribute you can give us, mon frère, to live! Do it for us! Goodbye, mon ami!" Francis disappeared.

What was that? Maddie was trying to make sense of what both Antonio and Francis had said. It was almost as if Gilbert was not …..

"Gilbert, did he just tell you to live?" she asked. "What did he mean by that?" Gilbert looked at her and then looked away.

"Gilbert!" Gil faded into the dark.

"GILBERT!" There was no answer. Gil had gone.

Maddie needed answers and there was just one person to talk to about it.

* * *

"WHAT!"

Maddie called her Uncle Allistor when she got home to ask about the accident and who exactly died. What she heard, she had already begun to suspect but it still took her by surprise.

"GILBERT BEILSCHMIDT IS STILL ALIVE!"

"Aye," her Uncle Allistor's voice drifted down the phone. Unlike her father's accent which was predominately English, Allistor had a broad Scottish accent that came from his formative years spent in the Highlands and he never lost it. "Gilbert Beilschmidt was the only one to survive the accident but he's been in a coma in the local hospital ever since. It's been over a month and he's getting weaker so we think it won't be much longer before he …. well, you know." Maddie was in shock. Gil was a living spirit, hovering between life and death. But he was ready to follow his friends because of the guilt he carried.

__It was all my fault they died! Now I just want my friends to rest in peace and then go with them!_ _

There was a chance! A chance she could save him and stop him following his friends into the Great Beyond and she would do whatever it took.

"So," Allistor said. "What's the progress with the spirits?"

"It's all in hand, Uncle Allistor."

* * *

In the hospital, the heart monitor beeped, brain function was measured and the respirator hissed around the unconscious albino boy in the bed. He was already pale but his eyes were shadowed and sunken in slightly and his hair was lank and lifeless. The hospital staff and even his own brother and Grandfather had given up hope that the boy would ever recover. He was sinking fast and it was only a matter of time.

* * *

Maddie ran as faster she could to the old gym. She was not going to let it happen, was not going to let Gilbert give up out of some sense of misguided guilt. He still had a life and probably a family. And someone who loved him.

She loved him!

She burst into the gym and there, up in the ceiling, Gilbert floated. Maddie guessed that he was there when he fell from the ladder.

"Gilbert!" she called up to him and he turned and looked down at her.

"You're not responsible!" Maddie declared. "It was just a tragic accident, that's what your friends have been trying to tell you! And you shouldn't feel bad that you survived, it was a miracle that you did! Don't throw it away! Your friends never blamed you and they wanted you to live so do it!"

"I know they don't blame me and that makes it worse," Gil admitted. "I lived and they didn't, that's not awesome! My body's failing, I can feel it and there's nothing left for me to do here, anyway."

"If that's true," Maddie argued. "Then why are you still here? Surely, you have family that would miss you and there are things left to do."

"Why does it matter so much that I live?"

"Because I love you!" Gilbert looked down at her in surprise. Francis had said so but Gilbert had not taken him seriously.

"I fell in love with you when I saw you on the train every day," she revealed. "When you gave up your seat for that old lady. And I love you more now so please! Stay and be my boyfriend!" Maddie wanted to clap her hand over her mouth. She was never so loudly outspoken but, around Gil, her most secret wishes leapt out of her mouth.

"I....I mean," she stammered. "There must be something keeping you here, something you want to do?" Gilbert drifted down to the ground beside her and stared at her for moment. Then he looked into a corner where some brushes and paints were stored.

"The festival," he said.

"What?"

"We never finished decorating this place," he replied, looking around the gym. "I came up with the theme. We were going to turn this unawesome gym into an awesome new world. Something no-one had ever seen before."

Maddie looked around the gym and, now that she looked closely, she could see things lightly drawn on the walls. The patterns and shapes were too light to make out but they were there. A template for whatever the BTT had planned. If this was what held Gilbert here, why had the other two not been bothered about it? Did they not want to see it finished?

"Let's do it!" Maddie declared. "You can possess me and we'll get it all finished! But you have to promise to wake up and come and see it in person, Gil. That's the condition!"

"Great idea, amigo!"

"You must promise the mademoiselle, mon ami!"

Maddie and Gilbert turned to see Antonio and Francis standing a few feet away from them.

"WHAT ARE YOU UNAWESOME PAIR STILL DOING HERE!" Gilbert stormed. "WHY DIDN'T YOU CROSS OVER LIKE YOU SAID YOU WOULD! WHY DIDN'T YOU GO TO HEAVEN?"

"Like Francis would get into heaven, amigo," Antonio quipped and got slapped on the back of the head by his offended friend.

"Do you think any of that was remotely important, mon ami," Francis said. "We pretended to cross over, hoping you would let us go and return to the living. So! What do you say we finish the gym?"

"Si," Antonio replied. "With all of us possessing Maddie, we'll get it done in no time."

"Oui," Francis said, lecherously. "It'll be like a foursome."

"Don't even think about it, mein freund!"

* * *

Gilbert went first. Maddie felt his soul inside her, moving her arms and legs around but she wanted to see him in his own body, to feel his hand holding hers, to feel his lips. She bet they would be warm.

As she was inhabited by each spirit, she painted and sprayed the gym with, what the cans said was luminous paint as she hoped that, at the end of this, Gilbert would choose to live.

* * *

The heart monitor continued to beat but there was an increase in activity in heart and brain function which brought the doctors and nurses running, increasing hope for his family that, maybe, Gilbert was on his way back to the living world.

* * *

By the time they were finished, it was getting dark and Maddie stretched after hours of being used to decorate the gym, extending her aching muscles and loosening up her back as the three spirits admired their handy work. The entire gym seemed to have been painted black and Maddie did not see anything of note.

"Gut!" Gil said. "It's dark enough now. Maddie, can you turn off the lights?" Then she remember the luminous spray paint and she went to the light switch. Gilbert held his hand.

"Ein, zwei, drei," Gil counted and then dropped his hand and Maddie turned off the lights.

The gym was plunged into pitch black and that was when Maddie saw it. Glowing stars littered the walls, ceiling and even the floor. A ringed planet spread from the wall onto the ceiling, along with moons and planets while the milky way wound its way around the gym. It was truly breath-taking.

"We did it," Gil breathed.

"Magnifique!" Francis gasped.

"Increíble!" Antonio said, staring at the ceiling. "We actually pulled this off. Gracias, Maddie! We couldn't have done it without your help!"

"Oui!" Francis agreed. "Now it's really time for us to go. Soon, we'll be among the stars, watching you!" Gil sighed.

"So this is it!" he said.

"For us, mon ami," Francis said, adamantly. "You're staying here to keep the Bad Touch Trio alive and to bring love into Petit's life. If you make her cry, we'll have to stay!"

"Antonio!" Maddie said, tearfully. "Francis!" She knew they had to go, that this was what she had come to accomplish but she was still sad that they had to depart this mortal coil.

"Oh, Petit," Francis smiled. "Don't cry for us! Just look after our friend. Monsieur Awesome needs someone to keep him out of trouble."

"It was wonderful to meet you, señorita," Antonio said. "I wish the best for you and Gilbert. Look after my friend." Both Francis and Antonio began to fade.

"Au revoir!" Francis said.

"Adiós!" was Antonio's last word before they faded completely. Maddie shed a tear at their loss.

"Thanks, Maddie!" She turned to Gil. "We couldn't have done it without you!" He moved closer to Maddie and she knew he was going to kiss her. Even though he could not physically do so did not matter. Maddie wanted him to.

Gilbert moved closer to this extraordinary girl who had finally helped his friends to finally rest in peace and he wanted to kiss her, wanted to stay and he moved forward to place his lips on hers. He knew he would not be able to actually do so physically but he still wanted to.

He was so close when he felt it. His body was failing, he could feel it. His heart was slowing and his body was growing weaker. He pulled back.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It's unawesome but I have to go." Gilbert began to fade.

"Gil, wait!" she begged and Gil smiled, sadly.

"Auf Wiedersehen, Maddie," he said and faded away. Maddie cried.

"NO! DON'T DIE!"

* * *

In the hospital, hope began to die as the heart monitor began to slow and Gil's breathing became shallower. His grandfather and brother watched in grief as the doctors and the nurses rushed to try and stop Gil's downward spiral into death but all hope was lost when the heart monitor flat-lined and the hateful continuous beep filled the hospital room

* * *

Maddie had run as fast as she could to the hospital and gasped out a request for Gilbert Beilschmidt's room, saying she was his sister because they would not tell her otherwise and she ran for his room. When she got there, there was a blonde boy slightly younger than Gilbert, being comforted by an older man with blond hair, streaked with grey, his grandfather maybe, and there in the bed, was a body, obscured with a sheet.

Maddie walked in slowly, unwilling to believe what she was seeing. The boy had looked up at her with his pale blue eyes.

"Who are you?" he asked. Maddie did not answer and just walked toward the body on trembling legs and she slowly pulled the sheet off the boy's face. Gil's face appeared from under the sheet, eyes closed and he was still. Too still! Maddie sobbed.

"No!" she wept. "I told you to come and see the gym in person! Your friends told you to live! For them! For me!" She put her head down on his chest and sobbed out her grief.

"How could you just die like this?" she condemned him. "HOW COULD YOU!" And she thumped both her fists down on his chest to the shock of the other two in the room.

"Ow!" a weak, German voice said. "I'll come see it, just don't hit me again. That's not awesome!" Everyone in the room gasped and Maddie looked up into Gilbert's half-opened, tired eyes as he gave a weak, half-smirk. The blonde boy came forward while the man went to get a nurse.

"Hello, bruder," Gil said to the blonde boy. "Come to visit the awesome me?" The blonde boy bent down to hug Gil.

"You scared the hell out of us, bruder," he reprimanded, letting him go. "You always have to be the centre of attention, don't you."

"Sorry, Luddy," Gil replied. "You get attention when you're this awesome." The man came back with a doctor and a couple of nurses who immediately went to Gil's side to check him over. The man went to Maddie's side and put his hand on her shoulder.

"I don't know who you are, fraulein," he said. "But thank you! We thought we'd lost him and I can't help but think you're the reason he returned to us."

"Her name is Madeline, Großvater," Gil said, weakly holding out his hand to Maddie who took it. "And she is the awesome reason I came back." He tugged her closer to him but she more went to him than was pulled as his strength was not up to much after being in a coma for over a month. He looked sick and drawn which was only to be expected. He would recover and Maddie hoped she was there to help him.

"You must have flown to get here so soon," he commented. "Quite the little birdie, aren't you, Maddie."

"I thought you had died!" she sobbed.

"I did die," Gil admitted. "But when I got to the others, they unawesomely kicked my ass and sent me back. They said I still had things left to live for and one of them was you so I returned." Maddie bent down to hug him.

"And I never did answer you," he whispered into her ear. "I think it would be awesome to be your boyfriend." Maddie looked down at Gil. He was too weak to reach up to her so she took the initiative and placed her lips over his.

They were as warm as she thought they would be and they were firm and smooth. She had him back. She hoped Antonio and Francis were up among the stars now but the Heavens would not have Gilbert just yet.

* * *

Maddie reassured Alfred that the gym was no longer haunted and, when school resumed, he reassured the rest of the students and, when they saw the gym, it was decided to re-hold the festival there in honour of Antonio and Francis. With girls.

Gilbert began the long road to recovery but, with Maddie by his side, he made great strides and eventually made it back to school with the support of all his school friends. Alfred had a few words of warning about how to treat Maddie, some quite over the top. Gilbert listened to his girlfriend's brother quietly and respectfully and, when Alfred left, immediately forgot it all.

He was an awesome boyfriend. His little Birdie said so every day and he loved her and always would.

Maddie still saw the dead and helped them move on but life was good for her and her boyfriend.

She finally got her boy from the train.

* * *

"Gilbert always has to be trouble," Antonio huffed, after he and Francis, more or less, kicked him back down to Earth and he fluttered his new wings and turned to Francis who, by some miracle, had been accepted into Heaven too. Francis stretched his own wings out.

"Oui," Francis agreed as they watched Gil wake up to Maddie through the clouds. "He's unawesomely stubborn but now he's where he belongs. Now!" he rubbed his hands together. "Where are all the femmes?"

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone recognise the couple in the Cinema? Here's a clue! It's a certain bad-tempered Italian and another certain waffle loving nation. ;P


End file.
